SpyParty

Head to a high-society cocktail party where everyone is hiding something. You won't be taking out a variety of enemies and you won't have to worry about little spacemen. All you need to do is act out your greatest desires that involve being a spy … or a sniper. As a spy, you'll have to complete a series of subtle tasks without being caught, all under the watchful eye of the sniper.

You'll have to do your best to blend in with the guests to make sure you aren’t found out, even if it means lingering a little longer during a conversation or skipping out on the tasks you need to finish out until there are other NPCs milling about. Just because there’s a party going on doesn’t mean you can get sloppy. You’ll learn to be hypervigilant, especially after being accused of being the spy after one wrong move.

Town of Salem

Everyone has their own role to play in the browser and mobile-based social deduction game Town of Salem. It takes place in Salem, Mass. with a healthy dose of references to the infamous Witch Trials. Inspired by equal parts Werewolf and Mafia, Town of Salem assigns roles to each player that allows different abilities. The name of the game is to survive as long as possible while meeting special victory conditions.

With 15 players all working to come out unscathed, Town of Salem can get downright savage, especially when deliberations begin about which characters could be potentially guilty of murder or other nefarious acts. If you're selected as the culprit, you could be destroyed at the stake in the center of town. It's not pleasant, but it's rife with a delicious amount of suspense. You'll hope it never ends.

Werewolves Within

Werewolves Within is a VR-based social deduction game that brings other players into the fold. It takes place in the medieval village of Gallowston, where werewolves are plaguing the villagers. Using your powers of deduction, you've got to join together with up to seven other players and figure out who's just an innocent villager looking to get rid of the furry nuisances running around town and who’s the furry nuisance themself.

No game will be the same as everyone works to fill their role and play it perfectly so as not to be found out. But it’s even harder to put on a poker face when you’re in virtual reality. That’s why this riff on the classic Werewolf is such an exciting one, and a game that you might find is exceedingly more difficult than Among Us in many ways.

Gnosia

Gnosia is one of the most intriguing games that's ever hit the Nintendo Switch. This so-called "debate-style" title is coming to the handheld and bringing its own brand of social deduction to the table. The titular Gnosia are scheming, deceptive creatures that happen to be almost perfect liars. Their job is to get close enough to humans to deceive them and pretend to be them. You and other players complete 15-minute gameplay loops where you take on the roles of crew members on a spaceship or the Gnosia.

Each night, the Gnosia will kill another person until it's caught. You must work to deduce who's a Gnosia and who isn't, and then force them into cold storage for safe-keeping. Players will chit-chat with each member of the crew to deduce who could be the guilty party, and then set placing the blame to a vote. It’s much like Among Us, but the art style is so creepy that it’s more unsettling than meme-y.

Deceit

Deceit finds players engaging in exactly what the title implies, and it's a nail-biter with each and every round. The game takes six players and thrusts them into a competition where the goal is to infect as many people as possible with a deadly virus (perhaps a little on the nose for 2020, but here we are). Everyone is locked in the same dungeon, but there's one caveat: There are two players who could become monsters at any time.

During the game's two phases, you'll work to escape the dungeon during the day and deduce who you should vote out by, well, killing them. The blackout phase forces players to find fuses and put them where they need to go to make it to the morning. That's when the infected players turn and go on a murdering spree. It's your job to figure out how to get out of this awful predicament — and fast!

Photo courtesy of Petit Depotto